


been keeping busy

by Darkfromday



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Book 1: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Dumbledore feeds that psyche a tiny tiny bit, Gen, Harry's psyche is starved for pride, Missing Scene, Quidditch, also known as Drabbles: An Attempt Was Made
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-20
Updated: 2020-08-20
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:08:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25986418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darkfromday/pseuds/Darkfromday
Summary: Harry has little experience making people proud. Perhaps that's why his first success means so much.
Relationships: Albus Dumbledore & Harry Potter
Comments: 12
Kudos: 19





	been keeping busy

**Author's Note:**

> Sooo in chapter 13 of _~~Sorcerer's~~ Philosopher's Stone_, Harry has his second Quidditch match and is freaking out because Snape's going to be refereeing—and as far as he knows, Snape tried to kill him in his first ever match. _But then._ We learn through Fred Weasley's surprised exclamation that (even) Dumbledore has come to watch, and Harry's nerves evaporate.
> 
> What my dumb hyperfocusing brain took from this, knowing that Dumbledore trusts Snape: apparently Dumbledore was not in the habit of attending Quidditch matches??? until Harry started playing???

The Gryffindor Quidditch locker room is cooling off now, nearly empty of crowding students and shower steam. For once Harry Potter doesn't find himself missing the warmth—he's more than warm enough on the inside.

It's been some time now since the match with Hufflepuff wrapped up. Not late enough for dinner, but well past the heat of the day; the excited Quidditch fans and the rest of his Gryffindor teammates have long since finished picking him up and swinging him around and cheering. Their praise, for once completely earned, makes him feel like he's flying—even while his feet are planted firmly on the ground. But it's not Wood's huge grin, or Ron and Hermione's excited shouts, that Harry is reliving as he finishes polishing his Nimbus Two Thousand.

He's remembering the smile on Professor Dumbledore's face instead.

The last thing Harry had expected was to have to worry about Snape while playing Quidditch, but Wood's warning days ago had burrowed into his mind and made all his worries about the Stone seem minor in comparison to the very real-feeling threat to his own life. But if avoiding Snape on a broomstick had once been far down on Harry's list of worries, the even _more_ unlikely last thing he'd expected was to have all those worries swept away moments before the match started by the headmaster's surprise appearance.

Expected or not, Dumbledore's presence had buoyed Harry's spirits—it had lent him a feeling of absolute security—and it had inspired in him, for the first time, the desire to show off a little. Suddenly things like a Golden Snitch catch in under five minutes seemed not only doable but _reasonable_. Ending the match so quickly might have bruised the Hufflepuff team's ego, but it had kept Harry away from Snape—and earned him something else far more valuable.

He turns the words over and over in his head now, in the quiet. Categorizing them, relishing them. Dumbledore had made sure to be quiet, but unmistakably pleased. _Well done. Nice to see you haven't been brooding about that mirror... been keeping busy... excellent_.

Before today, Harry's never heard the word _excellent_ applied to him in his life.

Truth be told, he hadn't been brooding _about_ the Mirror of Erised because he'd been busy having nightmares tied to what it had _shown_ him: his parents and grandparents and so on, as they must have looked before war and misfortune had taken them away. Spending all his energy at Quidditch practice was the only way Harry didn't wake up every witching hour sweating and shaking from another attempt to push through the glass and stand beside the other Potters.

But even now with the match done and the next one far off, Harry thinks he might be all right through the rest of the year. He's finally done something to be proud of. Now his housemates will have something besides Voldemort and his scar to whisper about; now the professors will remember something about him that's not tied to his parents' deaths. He's proven to his teammates and to Professor McGonagall that their faith in him (as a first-year Seeker!) was not misplaced.

And he's proven to Dumbledore that he can (mostly) put dreams of what-might-have-been to the back of his mind, and live in the present.

 _Well done_ , the headmaster's voice says again in his memory, warm and kind like it had been the night he found Harry with the mirror. Harry studies his gloved hands and smiles.

Polishing done, he sits with the feeling for five more minutes—or maybe ten or fifteen?—before packing his broomstick kit away. It's time to take his Nimbus to the broomshed, and maybe celebrate a bit more at dinner. Serious thoughts can surely wait for another time.

**Author's Note:**

> ...until he spots Snape accosting Quirrell in the forest. XD
> 
> Thanks for reading~!


End file.
